What About Cleaned Coins?

You told him and he made his decision. When I first read the post and you said "the young man" I thought maybe 15 or 16 but when you mentioned his wife called him and he ran-well, if he is able to make a major decision like marriage I would say he is capable of deciding to buy coins that have been cleaned or not. I think your buddies are being a bit harsh on you.

I also buy cleaned coins, as long as they look good. Yes final decision to buy rests on the buyer, for me a cleaned coin is surface treatment that went bad, if it turned out good, we can call it restoration

I too buy cleaned coins if they really look good, regardless of the cleaning. However, not if harshly cleaned with a brush or some solution that does more damage than good. Many times I will bring it up to a dealer in hopes of a reduced price and it usually works. Many people buy cleaned coins due to them looking new or just shinny.
For me and many others that do buy them, we usually have no or little plans on reselling them. They are for our own collections so it is only us with them that cares at all.
As long as the cleaning is mild, it is a great way to get coins cheaper.

I think you have an obligation to tell him they are cleaned. Even that is arguable.
What did your buddies expect you to do, talk him out of buying them?

I see nothing wrong with cleaned coins. He obviuously liked them. There are bigger things to worry about.

Carl, I think all of us would agree that we want to add to our number. The average age in our group is 64 including 8 members in there 20'S and 4 members 30-50. Some of us get together once or twice a week. Our monthly meetings are not well attended. 12 members went to the Tampa Fun show and at the show many coins were bought by our group. Most raw coins looked like they had been cleaned. Bright and shiny and they look good when shown. It seems that the rule that a cleaned coin should not be in a collection has been stripped of its meaning. The beauty shop look is all that matters,superficial.

This subject is really a good topic. I say that since I go to about 2 to 4 coin shows a Month and there are many, many dealers that sell cleaned coins. And some are really cleaned excessively and some just a minor cleaning to probably remove gum, tape, etc. Such coins in 2x2's or other flips are seldom ever noted as cleaned. I've only seen a few dealers that note that on a 2x2 or other flip. Most wait to see if you notice a cleaned coin and if you do, I'm always shocked when that dealer looks at me as if "I really didn't notice that" and yet the coin looks like it was just went over with a belt sander. In many instances I've had dealers try telling me OH, that is just a weak strike. I could only imagine how many hew collectors leave coin shows or coin stores with cleaned coins and don't know. One rather famous coin store in my area is famous for cleaned coins and yet they still have many customerss. And they never tell anyone that a coin was cleaned. Again, though why should they? The history of a coin is actually not the responsibility of a dealer. Sad but true.


Coin Chaser: Here is an odd note about ages. At all the coin shows I go to I too see almost all are in their elderly age groups. Yet at a coin show last Sunday I think I saw about 20% to 30% of even the dealers in their early 30's or even 20's. One dealer I was talking to I think was not much more than in his teens or just really look young. For the first time in a long time I saw at least 10 or more kids, 20 or more females and too, a sort of shortage of us old people. I wonder if things are changing?

And to some extent, how could it be?

I don't collect some of the same things as others here but I've always thought that the chance of a coin that shows really nicely not having ever been cleaned has got to pretty small. Now maybe that doesn't hold true for some of the US silver (I don't collect that) but I've seen some very nice looking early 20th century world coins (not expensive by a Morgan standard) that could not have been preserved that well without a little help some time in its past. By the time I've acquired it, the cleaning (assuming it wasn't the wire brush kind) has long been covered by circulation or other toning

I'm less of a purist when it comes to this. Again partly driven by the fact I'm not collecting precious metals.